Desperately…

I have been hunting for some really good, super-lemak nasi lemak in town but so far, I have yet to come across one that meets my standard. That left me with no choice but to try and cook my own. These were the ingredients I used…

…a bit of ginger, bruised, one stalk of serai (lemon grass), bruised also at the end and several leaves of pandan, knotted.

After washing 2½ cups of rice thoroughly, I added a can of santan (coconut milk) but that was not enough for the amount of rice I was cooking so I added a bit of water…

…and threw in the aforementioned ingredients plus a pinch of salt and left it to cook. I don’t know if it’s my around-25-year-old rice cooker that was the problem but I had to stir it regularly to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pot. That was all right and I managed to get it done in the end.

I did not bother to cook the sambal or the other condiments to go with it. Instead, I just served it with some leftover sambal nenas (pineapple) and acar (pickle) and I fried some fish as well plus some sambal belacan that I had in the fridge…

Unfortunately, it failed to meet my expectations. No, it just was not lemak enough. In fact, it was more or less like all those than I can get outside, nothing more and nothing less….and like all those outside, with all those things that I had to go with it…

…it sure made a very nice meal. Now where did I go wrong? Was it because I used canned santan instead of the freshly-squeezed one…or was it because I diluted it with water? At this point in time, I really do not know but I think I will give it another shot soon and hopefully, it will work out…somehow.

Gosh!!! It is really so very hot around here these days and one thing that we would do to cool down (inside) in such weather would be to cook some let tao th’ng (green bean soup). I think they call it bubur kacang hijau (green bean porridge) in Malay, if I am not wrong. Usually when my missus cooks it, she will drain it and everybody would enjoy it as when chilled, it does make a very nice refreshing drink…but it is such a waste of the beans which would end up being thrown away. Well, that day, I decided to do something with them. I added some water, evaporated milk and several scoops of pandan-flavoured kaya/coconut jam (Glory Brand) and brought it to boil…

Hey!!! It tasted really great especially when served cold. I must say that I enjoyed it a lot…and rest assured that when I cook some let tao th’ng again, I would surely use the beans for this very nice dessert…and maybe I would add some sago pearls as well next time.

Moving on from there, I am glad that I finally managed to use up all the not-very-nice made-in-China noodles that I bought in Miri. This time around, I fried them with sambal belacan plus some tauhu pok (fried bean curd) and tomato wedges…and garnish with spring onions…

…and some kacang tumbuk like what they do with Thai pineapple fried rice. I thought it was really very nice and the best thing about it was that the belacan was able to drown out the not-very-pleasant smell of the noodles and with the flavours of everything added, it sure was something I would not mind having again.

Maybe I can do the same with the (very much cheaper) dried egg noodles that we can get around here. Wanna have some? Come, come! Come on over and I’ll have that ready in a jiffy! Hehehehehehe!!!!